ShiftyLook Wraps Up Webcomics, Including ‘Bravoman,’ ‘Galaga’ And More

Sad news for fans of amazing webcomics where teenage girls team up with the President to battle hordes of alien bees: Shiftylook, a digital imprint started by Namco to revive "sleeping" video game properties in the form of webcomics, announced today that they were ceasing publication.

According to the official announcement,Bravoman will be ending with its 300th strip, Klonoa with #65, and Wonder Momo at #200. ComicsAlliance favorite Galaga is already finished at 100 strips, and Dig Dug has two more to go.

The end of Shiftylook, while a total bummer for fans of great comics, doesn't entirely come as a surprise. It was, after all, successful in its mission of reviving interest in some of Namco's properties. Wonder Momo, one of the more obscure titles in Namco's roster thanks to only being released in Japan -- probably because it was a side-scrolling beat-em-up that featured a photographer trying to get upskirt shots of the heroine, who would be momentarily stunned if he succeeded -- ended up coming out of Shiftylook with a 200-page comic by Eric Ko, Jim Zub and Omar Dogan, an animated miniseries and a reboot game developed by WayForward that's slated to hit later this year. Bravoman even has an animated series on the way. On that front, and as far as producing over a thousand pages of comics, mission accomplished.

Still, while webcomics about video games aren't exactly in short supply on the Internet (they are, in fact, second only to cat pictures in the evidence aliens will have to use to figure out what destroyed our once-mighty human civilization), getting them this well done is a rarity indeed. Galaga, by Ryan North, Christopher Hastings and Anthony Clark, was one of our picks for the Best Comics of 2013, and there's a consistent level of quality that ran through the whole line.

Still, the press release does have one nice note to it, since it confirms that Bravoman, Wonder Momo, Katamari, and Galaga books are "Releasing as scheduled by UDON Entertainment." So we've got that to look forward to!